A Day Trip to Niigata

Tomorrow night I leave Tokyo for a day-trip to Niigata. My wife is giving a presentation at a symposium (regarding Chinese politics/history), so we’re making a day-trip out of it. We take a night bus from Ikebukuro (where I live) that leaves Friday night at 11:30, and we should get there early Saturday morning around 5. We’ll return by night bus that same night at 11. Although we’re saving some money by taking the bus instead of the Shinkansen (the Japanese rapid train), the shitty thing is that I won’t get to see the great scenery that we’ll be travelling through since it’ll be at night. I’ve yet to see the Japanese alps, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to see anything from Niigata city, but here’s hoping. I’m definitely bringing my digital stills camera with me, as well as my digital video camera, so I’ll have lots of pics from there for the next week or so of daily pics.